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"We’re a funny family"

"I asked when the baby was due, and she said she’d been pregnant forever and still had a few years to go"

"That’s Sis, sure enough"

We arrived at a short hallith changing rooms on both sides, where customers could try on the secondhand clothes

The clerk said, "There’s a basket in the roos fit, just put all your wet clothes in the basket Your sister said you’d want to donate the on the doorknob

"It’s your room," she said "I reserved it when your sister said you’d be along shortly"

"Thank you,all over your store"

"Oh, dear, don’t you worry That’s why God made mops" She patted me on the shoulder and left me alone

On a bench in the changing room were a white T-shirt, a pair of briefs, socks, blue jeans, a blue crewneck sweater, a pair of Nike basketball shoes, and a black raincoat with a hood

Everything fit perfectly I left ht-hand pocket of the raincoat, I found a disposable cell phone It rang in my hand

I felt as if I were in a Mission Impossible movie The internals of the phone would probablyas soon as we finished our conversation

"Hello?"

As always, her words seemed to float to me on the warm currents of her voice "Do you reave you the pendant with the bell?"

"Yes,room were thin, I lowered my voice "You said some people wanted to kill you And you asked me if I’d die for you I said yes, somewhat to my surprise"

"But not to mine When my hour of need arrives, hoill you be able to die for me if you’re already dead from pneumonia?"

"I was just a little wet"

"And I’aloshes, too"

"I’ht now?"

"Where you left e by the sea, with Ti thee, a couple hundred miles from here, and buy me these clothes?"

"Every place is the same place in the end"

"Another riddle"

"You hear riddles, but I never speak in thereat structures falling into ruin, and here below, the building vibrated as if with a premonition of its own destruction

I said, "The clerk told me you called yourself my sister"

"People hear what they need to hear"

"I wish you were my sister"

I swear I could hear her smile when she said, "That’s sweet of you, odd one, and I know you don’t intend to diminish me"

"Diminish you? What does that mean?"

"It means what it means, as you will understand in time"

In the silent wake of the thunder, more intirille, in the back wall of the dressing roo The soft ponk and bink of sheet ht An inter noise

"Now tell me," Annamaria said, "have the events of the day made you afraid?"

"For a while there, yeah But I’e your fear, odd one Fearlessness is for the insane and the arrogant You are neither Those who rely on you for their lives will be well served only if you fear what you should fear You are a unique soul, a child of grace, but you can still fail yourself and others"

I thought of the Green Moon Mall in Pico Mundo, nineteen months earlier, whenthe dead had been she whom I loved more than myself, more than life

I sat on the bench where I had foundfor me "Truth is,time And I’m afraid to be afraid"

"Afraid to be afraid, but why?" she asked, though it seemed to me that she knew me as well as I knew myself and that her question was therefore rit and little more Or be fancy and call it fortitude I can endure pain and trial, and not lose hope Grit and wit--laughter in the dark is my surest defense I usually hold off fear with a joke, but that only works for a while What true courage I ht have is lih to get through a crisis If the crisis is protracted, as I suspect this one will be, if fear is constant for too long, then courage will for darn sure bleed out ofthat I thought I had embarrassed her with my confession, but that see man, there are few people who understand as much about themselves as you understand about yourself, to the depth that you understand it But your greatest strength is that there are things you don’t recognize about yourself"

"Which would be what?"

"There’s one kind of ignorance that is the very essence of enlightennorance that makes you so beautiful"

Evidently, I hadn’t embarrassed her, but the word beautiful e I see in mirrors "Another riddle," I said

"If you want to think it is"

The hardest crack of thunder yet shook the afternoon, as if the sky were stone that had fractured clean through Either echoes of the thunder rattled the sheet itated by the storhtenstoday, this time, this situation…"

"Yes," Annamaria said, as if she knew of my recent experiences

I said, "The spirits who seek me out aren’t for the most part malevolent, just lost The evil that coht see in the newspapers and wouldn’t find unusual An old high-school friend turned child-killer, cops gone bad, terrorists with a boatload of nukes … But what I’ve seen today is different in kind and "

"Anyone who learns the true and hidden nature of the world will be terrified, Oddie, but there’s a safe harbor past the terror"

"Is that what I’ today--the true and hidden nature of the world?"

"Tiood, if I say so myself Listen, because of who you are, it’s inevitable that eventually you will peel the onion, so to speak, and see the truth of everything"

"I’d rather just chop the onion, fry it with a dribble of olive oil, and put it on top of a cheeseburger So but a fry cook, with a paycheck every Friday, good books to read, and all my friends in Pico Mundo"